Computer giant Microsoft has emerged triumphant in its battle against a major source of internet spam.

A US court ruled that Microsoft can shut down the Waledac botnet, a network of hacker-controlled computers.

The firm say this botnet can send out up to 1.5 billion unwanted emails a day.

What does this ruling mean for the average Internet user?.

You can listen to the comments of Hugh Thompson a New York-based Internet security expert and Program Committee Chair of the RSA Conference, the world’s biggest gathering of security professionals on the BBC site.

Hopefully this ruling will cut down on the number of spam emails you/we receive daily.